The Weekly Pen: Irrational Exuberance & The Final Invention

Week 18 weekly pen wrapup, ending a week of the return of meme coin season, and the lurking ”fear” of what many call the final invention, i.e. A.I. How will impact the global financial markets, local economies, and personal freedom. The Pen team has (manually) aggregated this week’s headliners concerning all things global economy, tech, crypto, politics, and more, for your quick overview. Countries battling for power, from centralization to decentralization of money and the elephants in the courts. Without further ado, have a good read.

GLOBAL ECONOMY

Kazakhstan collected $7M in crypto mining taxes in 2022.

Zimbabwe sets price to sell gold-backed digital tokens.

China takes the Yuan Global in bid to repel a weaponized Dollar.

Nobel economist Paul Krugman says minting a $ 1 trillion coin to prevent a debt ceiling crisis wouldn’t be inflationary.

White House weighing the possibility of a short-term debt ceiling.

BNP Paribas will link digital yuan to bank accounts for promoting CBDC use.

FED rate hike jumped from 5.00% to 5.25% on May 3rd, completing 3rd hike within first half of 2023.

Bhutan’s DHI and BitDeer to raise $500M to develop sustainable mining operations.

IMF director says, retail CBDCs bring unknown ’consequences’ to financial system.

Bhutan has been mining Bitcoin with hydropower since BTC price was $5,000.

Lawmakers look to Break Impasse on Debt Ceiling.

Taiwan’s trade clash with China could benefit the U.S.

ECB slows pace of Rate increases.

POLITICS

White House to build international standards for DLT.

U.S. SEC changes its mind on officially labeling digital assets.

North Carolina joins Florida in passing anti-CBDC legislation.

SEC investigates trades by First Republic executives before sale to JPMorgan.

U.S. DOJ investigating Binance for Russia-related sanctions.

New York attorney general seeks New Crypto Powers for State Regulators.

New York could force crypto firms to refund fraud victims with new legislation.

Kenya is considering tax on crypto, NFT transfers, and online influencers.

Montana governor signs pro-cryptocurrency mining bill into law.

New white house standards strategy could have implications for crypto industry KYC.

SEC steps back from defining digital assets in new hedge fund rules.

State regulators crack down on fraudulent cryptos promoted as ’Elon Musk AI Token’ and ’TruthGPT coin’.

French Senate proposal would allow influencers to promote cryptocurrency.

US lawmakers introduce bipartisan bill proposing ban on members investing in ’financial instruments’.

UK government targets fraudsters with new ban on cold calls for crypto.

White House wants crypto miners to pay 30% climate change tax.

Nigeria SEC prepares new digital asset rules.

EU crypto regulation could influence laws worldwide.

CRYPTO

PEPE memecoin hits $ 1 billion market cap fueled by Binance listing.

Ukraine seizes 9 exchange domains on money laundering allegations says FBI.

Coinbase international exchange launches amid SEC crypto crackdown in US.

Coinbase faces suit over alleged privacy violations in biometrics collection.

Aussie crypto exchange kicks off US expansion despite ’regulatory risk’.

Liechtenstein adapts blockchain laws to developing crypto landscape.

South Korea tightens grip on digital asset trading.

ARK Invest Holds $2.4B stock with crypto exposure.

Jack Dorsey’s nano Bitcoin mining chip heads to prototype.

PAYMENTS

Block’s Cash App hits 53 million monthly active users, with direct deposits up 69%.

Argentina’s central bank halt cryptocurrencies from payments apps.

Cash app bitcoin revenue tops $2 billion in the first quarter.

Paxful’s co-founder working with Jack Dorsey’s TBD to launch a plug-and-play P2P marketplace.

Venmo introduces crypto transfers.

Stripe launches fiat-to-crypto onramp with new hosted option.

BANKING

FED is cracking on small banks with underwater bonds and it may not be the last one.

An academic research paper established a link between tweets about withdrawing money and consequently collapsing SVB.

Crypto firms are reportedly banking through intermediaries.

Societe Generaly says Europe’s banks must set attitude aside and drive Fintech partnerships.

Regional banking crisis is unstoppable unless the Fed cuts interest rates.

Former top execs of SVB and Signature Bank will testify at Senate hearing.

JPMorgan acquires troubled First Republic Bank.

Big banks ”eating up” little banks, might lead to a central bank digital currency in America.

FINANCIAL MARKETS

Warren Buffet & Charlie Munger thinks Elon Musk is too ambitious, and they are opting to fail much less than him.

OpenTrade to launch platform for investing in tokenized financial assets.

CBDC skepticism in Europe paves path for tokenized deposits.

Market is looking for the next regional bank ’domino’ to fall.

FTX seeks to claw back $4B from Genesis in a battle of the Bankrupt.

Berkshire Hathaway dumps billions of dollars of US stocks.

Japanese companies seeking US deals fear more scrutiny of China links.

US banking crisis pushes gold close to all-time high.

INVESTMENTS

Pepecoins bewildering rise turned a pittance into an almost 5,000,000% meme coin profit.

PacWest stock jumps 80% as regional banks rebound on Friday.

Coinbase jumps 17% post-earnings.

Pepecoin short sellers lose million as PEPE nears $1B valuation.

Bitcoin falls slightly after FED rate hike, but preps for upcoming market rally as inflationary crisis lurks.

Eligible Celcius users can withdraw all ’Distributable Custody Assets’ following court approval.

Voyager creditors could start seeing funds in the ’next few weeks’.

Wallstreet bets mod dumps memecoin worth $635k in alleged rug pull.

Bitcoin miners have earned $50B from BTC block rewards fees since 2010.

ARK Invest grabs another $8M in Coinbase shares.

ChatGPT says new AI crypto is going to provide 50x more gains than Bitcoin in 2023.

DEFI

Coinbase endure $700M in staked Ether outflows as Decentralized Liquid Staking protocols gain.

DEUS finance loses $6M following stablecoin hack.

Liquid staking solutions now have more TVL than DEXs.

$22M of curve finance algo stablecoin minted since main net launch.

Jury convicts former OpenSea manager in NFT-insider trading case.

Bitcoin BRC-20 token standard becomes new destination for meme tokens.

Sports Illustrated launches Polygon-based NFT ticketing platform.

SEC crackdown on crypto staking in US could boost decentralization.

Darknet hackers are selling crypto accounts for as low as $30 a pop.

Blur introduces NFT perpetual lending protocol.

TECH

Block CEO Jack Dorsey plans aggressive moves with AI, ChatGPT.

Fintechs tout ways to invest business clients’ cash above FDIC limits.

Generative AI gives scammers more tools and greater reach.

Quantum computing set to change finance.

White House announces $140million A.I. hub investment ahead of tech meeting.

Alibaba cloud builds metaverse launchpad on Avalanche.

Deloitte integrates blockchain for digital credentials.

Apple will weave AI into products.

AI can be used to improve credit scoring.

Nigerian national blockchain policy gets government approval.

Crypto.com launches ChatGPT-based AI user assistant Amy.

7,800 jobs at IBM could be replaced by AI within years, says CEO.

Sotheby’s auction house launches on-chain secondary NFT marketplace.

- Till we yield again

*Disclaimer: This article is not financial or investment advice, nor should it be perceived as such. Penning Group and the author shall not be held accountable for any misinterpreted information by the reader. If you are interested in learning more about investing in the DeFi space and in general, please get in touch with us.

Sources:

www.businessinsider.com

www.marketsinsider.com

www.americanbanker.com

www.pymnts.com

www.cnbc.com

www.coindesk.com

www.cointelegraph.com

www.wsj.com

www.ft.com

reuters.com